Thursday, December 9, 2010

NERD

It's funny to find out how your children perceive you. We were at a McDonald's the other day and a Stevie Wonder song started playing. This caused me to share a story with my oldest two kids who were there about how I had never heard of Stevie Wonder as a singer when I was a kid. Instead, I had a friend at Awana named Steven who had the nickname "Stevie Wonder." I thought it must be since everyone thought he was so cool. This caused me to wish that I had an equally cool nickname- something like "Davie Wonder." At this point my wife and kids cracked up and my oldest daughter said in dis-belief, "you mean you were a nerd?"

My wife was shocked that the kids had no idea that I was a nerd before she made me over. She takes all the credit for changing me to the point where I am the cool dude I am today (although I'm still waiting to be called Davie Wonder- oops, there goes my inner nerd sneaking out again). Mostly, my wife was rightly impressed with herself for changing my nerdiness so much that our teenage daughter had never suspected my nerd-like roots.

Of course being called a nerd somehow got me just a bit defensive. I began to share that I actually fit with the athletes at school as well as with the brains. I thought I was bragging when I shared that I had the second highest GPA in my graduating class (even though there were only 16 of us). My son wanted to know who had higher grades than me. When I said that her name was Rachelle, his reply was, "ha- you got beat by a girl!" Okay, that's humbling. First, I'm a nerd because I had good grades. Then, I'm not enough of a nerd because a girl had even higher grades than me. I don't think I'll ever understand my kids.